


Shadow Travel Shuffle

by balloonstand



Series: Why isn't there more shadow travel fic? [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Disneyland, M/M, a ridiculous amount of shadow travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1760095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balloonstand/pseuds/balloonstand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico’s shadow travel abilities go haywire. Percy tags along as protection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadow Travel Shuffle

**Author's Note:**

> Shadow travel seems like a superb plot device that has been grossly underused. I aim to fix that.

It's that point in a battle when it's been going on long enough that Percy feels like he's always been fighting, that he has never existed without a sword in his hand, but not long enough that he's tired of it. He's basically on auto-pilot at this point. Duck, swing, block, swing, and a new cloud of dust where there used to be a monster. _Hey, Macarena_. Turn to the left and do the whole thing again.

Percy doesn't mind. He can never really think of a battle as monotonous or predictable, no matter what kind of groove he gets into. And fighting alongside his friends, doing good with the people he loves most, well. That's the kind of monotony he could get used to. 

A blast of something that feels distinctly magical and a little bit like fire knocks Percy out of auto-pilot and into a wall. He tries to catch his breath, but the wind has been knocked out of him and all he can do is gape like a panicked fish for an agonizing minute or two. He forces himself to calm down and slowly he can breathe again. Once his brain is getting oxygen again, Percy looks around, trying to get his bearings.

He's the only one who's still down. Annabeth is already up and leading a charge towards what Percy guesses is the source of the magic light blast, a glowing blob that occasionally looked took on the outline of a very tall person. Most of his friends are in that charge, with only Hazel trailing behind. Out of the corner of his eye, Percy sees Nico materialize out of the shadows near a row of drinking fountains. Nico looks disoriented and confused. Percy frowns. He pulls water out of the fountain nearest Nico and splashes him in the face to get his attention and see what's wrong. Or at least he tries to. By the time he's summoned the water, Nico has melted back into the shadows. 

"Percy," Jason yells. "A little help?" 

Percy surges back into the fray. He lets himself get lost in the fighting again, though this time he's a little more conscious of flares of light attacking him. Every now and again Nico will appear in the corner of his vision, popping in and out of the shadows all over the room. Percy wonders what kind of plan Nico is trying to pull off. It doesn't seem like a very effective plan, but then again Percy knows he's not exactly the brightest kid in the room. ( _Ha, the brightest kid in the room- get it? Because they're fighting big Light Blob Man_.) If Nico has a plan, Percy will probably be the last one to guess it. A monster breaks away from the pack defending the big Light Blob Man and Percy shouts, "Dibs!" and chases after it.

He traps it in a dark corner at the edge of the room, slightly out of view of the rest of the fighting. He's just opening his mouth to say something devastatingly clever when the dark corner gets a little darker and a little cooler. Nico steps out of the shadows, reducing the monster to dust with an efficient flash of his sword.

"Hey," Percy says, "I called dibs."

Nico grabs Percy's hand, looking slightly pained and more frazzled than Percy has seen him in a long time.

"Whoa, wh-" Percy starts. Then he's being dragged by the hand through the shadow realm. At least that's what he calls it in his head. Maybe it's called the shadow kingdom? Or the shadow zone? Percy isn't sure. He's also not sure if they're ever going to make it out. It feels like at least ten minutes pass before the dark releases its hold on them. 

As Percy blinks rapidly to adjust to the sudden light, Nico's legs buckle underneath him.

"Whoa there," Percy says, throwing an arm around the boy to keep him upright. He would have used both arms, but one of his hands is still clasped in Nico's sweaty grip. "You all right?"

"Fine," Nico says a little faintly.

Percy looks around for a place to sit him down and realizes that he has no idea where they are. When he asks, Nico shrugs.

"A city," he guesses.

"Wow, you think?"

They're on the roof of a parking structure with buildings rising up on all sides. Between two of the buildings, Percy can see a bit of water, a river. He shakes off Nico's hand and steps to the edge of the roof to try to get a better view of the water when he realizes that he hasn't asked the more important question. "Why are we here, Nico?"

Nico looks around, tiredly and a little helplessly. "I don't know there's something wr-"

His eyes get wide and he surges forward, grabbing Percy's arm. Darkness again.

When they stagger out of the shadows, they're in a green valley. 

"There's something wrong with my shadow travel," Nico gasps, though that news is nothing that's not obvious at this point. Nico is even paler than usual, which is quite the feat for him. "Aether blasted me with light and now I can't control my shadow travel." He looks up at Percy guiltily. "I- I grabbed you because I need protection. Shadow traveling- it's exhausting. I won't be able to defend myself if I travel somewhere dangerous."

Percy cocks his head to the side. "Who's Aether?"

They're out of the green valley and in a warehouse by the time Nico can answer. "The guy who was blasting light back at the museum."

"Oh, you mean big Light Blob Man?"

"Sure, big Light Blob Man. Or as he's also known, Aether, god of the upper air and the embodiment of pure light," Nico says. He sounds annoyed.

"How long are you... How long is it going to be like this?"

"I don't know," Nico winces. "I don't know."

Percy feels a very familiar rush of pity for the kid. He already looks totally wiped out. Percy isn't sure how much more of this surprise shadow traveling Nico will be able to handle before he passes out. "Maybe you'll keep going until you're too tired to travel any more and then it will be over."

Nico glares at him and Percy doesn't blame him. As far as reassurances go, that was pretty awful. So he's terrible at comforting Nico di Angelo. What else is new. He pats Nico's shoulder and pulls his hand away. Nico surprises him by stopping him and putting Percy's hand back on his shoulder. When Percy raises his eyebrows, Nico reddens and looks at the ground. 

"We have to be touching if we're going to shadow travel together."

He doesn't need to say it out loud for Percy to understand that Nico's lost all control over his abilities to the point where he can't even predict when he's about to be dragged to another corner of the world. However Aether's light blast messed with Nico's shadow travel, it messed it up bad. Percy can't even imagine how Nico must be feeling. He knows how _he's_ feeling though and he's feeling like he wants to punch Aether in his blob until he's too bruised to shine.

"Good idea. I'd hate to be abandoned in..." He looks around. "Nebraska?"

"And I'd hate to be killed because I'm too tired to hold my sword."

Percy holds back a sigh.  _You'd be frustrated too_ , he tells himself.  _And you'd probably handle it much worse_. 

"I won't let anyone kill you." It sounds sarcastic as he says it, but he hopes Nico can tell that it's not. Nico has to know. It's why he grabbed Percy instead of one of the others, isn't it?

"Thanks," Nico says. That sounds sarcastic too. An awkward silence follows and Percy almost wishes that Nico's shadow travel would kick in so he wouldn't have to feel guilty that he has to scramble for something to say to someone who he's known for years. It's not that there's nothing to say, it's just that talking to Nico is like navigating a minefield. He's accidentally pissed off Nico so many times that the next time he makes a well-intentioned remark that ends up reigniting an old argument, he'll get a free soda.

"Is there anyone we could talk to? Anyone who would know how to help?" he asks.

Nico considers for a moment. "Erebus is Aether's counterpart. He's the personification of darkness so he would know. Or Hades, I guess," he adds reluctantly. 

"Where's Erebus?"

Nico smiles hollowly. "Tartarus, of course." Before Percy can respond, Nico continues. "Not that it matters. I can't control my travel. I couldn't get to Tartarus if I wanted to."

They’re ripped out of the warehouse and the next stop on the shadow travel shuffle is a beach. Percy has just enough time to yell _sweet, a beach!_ before they’re back in the shadow realm.

This time they end up in a dirty alleyway that dead-ends in a brick wall. It’s littered with trash and there is a flock of self-important birds, but other than that it’s empty. The sky is dark with clouds and the gloomy atmosphere suits the alley. The hair on the back of Percy’s neck stands up. He feels like they’re being watched. He instinctively grabs for his pen, his fingers on the cap ready to pull it off in an attack.

“I think I need to sit down,” Nico whispers.

“Not here, it’s not safe,” Percy says.

“Percy.”

Percy stops surveying the alley for danger to spare Nico a glance. He has his eyes closed and his head tilted back like he is trying to rest it on an imaginary pillow. There is dark shading around his eyes and the contrast with his pale skin is remarkable. He looks about five times worse than he did in the warehouse. Percy's mind helpfully supplies several jokes about Hades' son looking dead on his feet, but he's too worried to make the jokes out loud.

"Please," Nico is saying softly. He doesn't look like he can spare any energy for speaking at a normal volume.

"Let's get out of this alley and then you can rest." Percy sees a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, but when he whips around it's just the birds fluttering around at the end of the alley. The sun breaks through the clouds at that moment and glints off the birds' feathers like they're made of metal. Percy frowns. Nico uses his distraction to sink down against the wall.

"All right," Percy says. "Rest there for a minute. I'm going to check out those shiny birds." He points with his pen at the mouth of the alleyway.

"No!" Nico cries. "You can't go, what if I shadow travel without you?"

"I'll be quick," Percy promises, but Nico has a point. So he stands next to where Nico is sitting and lets Nico clutch a handful of his jeans at his ankle. The alleyway still feels dangerous, though Percy can't pinpoint the danger. He watches the birds flit around and half-listens to Nico's labored breathing.

"Hey Nico," he says after a minute of watching the birds. "Is it just me or those birds shinier than birds usually are?" There's no answer, and when Percy glances down at Nico, he looks like he has fallen asleep. "Yeah, you're right,” Percy says, “those birds look totally normal. Doesn't look like they have knives for feathers, nope." He tries to work up the energy to be genuinely worried about this, but it's been a long day and the birds are all the way at the other end of the alleyway, so he lets his mind drift.

He wonders how long this has been going on and how much longer it will last. He thinks about his friends who he abandoned in the middle of a battle – one that they had mostly under control, but still a battle - and wonders if they're all okay and if they're worried about him and Nico. He wonders a lot about whether they've made the connection between his absence and Nico's absence. He's not sure why he's so caught up on that. Even if his friends know that he and Nico are together, even if they guess about the shadow travel, they still can't do anything to help. He wants to try to get a message to them, but he's has no money for an Iris message and so far the shadow travel shuffle hasn't dropped them in an internet cafe.

He is yanked out of his thoughts when Nico cries out his name. He has Riptide unsheathed and in his hand before he fully registers the sound. The birds that had been down at the other end of the alleyway a minute ago are now flocked around him and Nico. As Percy watches, one of them lunges at Nico, pecking at his shoulder. Percy swings Riptide in a wide arc, not trying to hit the birds just trying to make them scatter.

"Shoo!" he says. They retreat a few feet, but no further than that. "Are you all right?" Percy asks Nico, not taking his eyes off the birds. He brandishes his sword at any that come too close. "Nico?"

"Fine," Nico says. Percy risks a peek, noting that Nico's shirt is torn where the bird pecked him and there is blood seeping from the area.

"We're going to have to discuss what 'fine' means once this is over."

Percy faces the birds again. He can tell which one hurt Nico because one has blood smeared on his beak. Percy glares at that one. The bird glares back. "I think this one has a taste for human flesh," Percy tells Nico worriedly.

Nico snorts. "They all do. They're Stymphalian birds. Man-eating birds," he clarifies when Percy makes a confused sound.

As if all they had been waiting for was the proper introduction, the birds form ranks when Nico says Stymphalian. Then they charge. Percy cuts them down right and left, but he's outnumbered by far. He steps right in front of Nico to shield him as best he can with his body, one leg on either side of Nico's legs where he's still slouched against the wall. Still, he knows a few birds get past him or around him whenever Nico cries out in pain behind him. It makes Percy see red and he's still swinging his sword the first minute or so that he's in the shadow realm before he realizes that they're safe.

***

As soon as they're back in the real world Percy grabs Nico and pulls his up to eye-level. "Let me see, where are you hurt?"

Nico doesn't answer, just looks at Percy like he's in shock. Gods, Percy hopes he's not actually in shock, that Nico hasn't lost too much blood or endured too much pain. But his body is being pushed to the limit with all this shadow travel as it is and now he has wounds on top of that. Percy makes sure he's as gentle as possible when he starts tugging Nico's shirt off to get a better look at his injuries, but Nico still jumps like Percy has just stuck a knife in him.

"Sorry, sorry," Percy says. "I need to look at your cuts. Will it be easier if you take your shirt off yourself? Or should I try to cut it off?"

"I can do it," Nico rasps.

Percy remembers that they have to be touching so he puts his hand on Nico's knee when he sits down. Nico sighs like all this touching is too much trouble and he might prefer just leaving Percy behind all together. But he strips off his shirt anyway and drops it to the side.

At a glance, Percy counts six different cuts across Nico’s shoulders and torso. His arms are bloodied as well from raising them to defend himself against the birds. Percy pushes away the rush of shame that thought produces. He can deal with that later, once he’s patched Nico up some. Then he remembers that he doesn’t exactly have a first aid kit with him. He makes a quick inventory of his resources: Riptide, his clothes, ten bucks in his back pocket and a deck of cards in his jacket pocket. His surroundings don’t provide him anything more useful; they’re in another empty field.

“Why so many empty fields?” he wonders out loud rather than tell Nico that there’s nothing he can do for him right now.

He doesn’t get an answer and when he can tear his guilty gaze away from Nico’s injuries, he sees that the boy is asleep. Percy’s shoulders slump in relief. Sleep is good. It’s not nighttime where they are, but that isn't going to stop Percy from sleeping right now. Not wanting to chance being left behind, he curls his body around Nico’s, wrapping his arm around the boy’s waist and linking his fingers through Nico’s belt loop so that he doesn’t accidentally roll away in his sleep.

When he wakes up, they’re surprisingly still in the same field. Or another very similar field maybe, all fields pretty much look alike to him. Percy allows himself a moment of cautious optimism that this whole mess is over. He blinks slowly as he tries to take in his surroundings without moving; he’s still too sleepy to move anything except his eyes. He curls his fingers around Nico’s belt loop to make sure that he's still with him and he hears Nico draw a sharp breath. Percy realizes that Nico is in the exact same position he had been when Percy fell asleep except now his whole body is rigid with tension. He must be uncomfortable. Percy makes a show of waking up and lets Nico slither out of his embrace, but not his touch.

“Sorry about the cuddling,” Percy says.

“It’s fine,” Nico says quickly. He sounds irritated.

Percy feels that he hasn't apologized properly, so he continues. “I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t roll away when we were sleeping. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Nico laughs for a long time, but it’s sharp and not a joyful sound.

Later, when he's done laughing, Nico makes a surprising pronouncement: "I've been here before."

"When?"

"When I was first learning how to use my shadow travel. I've..." he trails off and thinks for a moment. "I've actually been to all the places we've been to."

"Why didn't you say anything before?"

Nico glares at him. "I don't know, maybe because I was being dragged through the shadow realm all day? It's a little tiring, you know."

Percy can't help his smile. "You call it the shadow realm too?"

Nico stares at him and it's the stare of a person who can't believe he's entrusted his survival to someone so incredibly dim-witted. Percy gives him a moment to accept and adjust to this fact before asking Nico when he had been in this valley before.

"It was part of my – training, I guess you'd call it. When I was first learning how to control my shadow travel I used to go to these places all the time. Shadow travel is like a muscle. You have to exercise it to make it strong. I guess it also built up muscle memory."

"So when Aether blasted you," Percy says, "your shadow travel tried to...reboot?"

Nico grimaces at the word choice, but nods.

"Oh." Percy brightens. "So we just have to tough it out for a few more stops and then everything will be back to normal?"

"More like ten or fifteen stops. And it's easy for you to say, I'm the one who has do all the work."

"But didn't you used to do this for training?"

"Not all in _one day_."

"Well," Percy grins. "Just think about how bulked up your shadow travel muscles with be after this. You'll have a shadow travel six pack." He pokes Nico in the stomach and Nico swats his hand away, blushing. Percy is momentarily distracted. He tries to remember if it was always his easy to make Nico blush and why he doesn't try to do it more often. Then his stomach rumbles and all thoughts not related to food are effectively eliminated.

"What stops can we look forward to? Anywhere with delicious free food, maybe?"

* * *

It turns out that he doesn't have to wait for the next stop to get food. Apparently Nico has gotten himself stuck here before by pushing himself too hard in his training and being too tired to travel back. He had found an old cabin at the edge of the field. It was long-abandoned, but the vegetable garden was still full of edible things, if you consider carrots and beets and green stuff to be edible. Normally Percy wouldn't, but he'll make an exception when there's a threat of starvation. He considers talking one of the fish in a nearby pond into making a sacrifice for him, but Nico convinces him not to, saying that they didn't know anything about preparing and cooking fish and Percy wouldn't want to eat undercooked fish, would he? Percy feels moderately better with food in his stomach.

They lay around all day, not sure what to do and not sure how long they'll be in this field. Nearly a full day passes and Nico keeps trying to use his shadow travel, testing to see if he has regained any of his control over it. Percy gets bored and nearly wanders off a few time, only to have Nico grab him and keep him within touching range. There are a few awkward moments, like when one of them has to pee, but they solve that by the one not peeing standing with his back turned and one hand one the pee-er's back. Percy's awkwardness has nothing on how uncomfortable this makes Nico. When Percy pees, Nico kills all the grass in a five-foot diameter around them.

They're eating what they estimate to be dinner when the shadows grab them and haul them off to the next stop on their whirlwind tour of Nico's Top Shadow Travel Destinations. This time they stop in an empty kindergarten classroom. The sky outside the windows is dark. Now that Percy knows that Nico has been all these places before and been here voluntarily, he feels comfortable teasing Nico for bringing them here.

"A _kindergarten_ classroom, Nico?"

Nico blushes and Percy's stomach does a weird thing that he's beginning to associate with Nico's blushes. He's been trying to make Nico blush more so he can figure out what's wrong with his stomach.

"I never came here during the day," Nico says.

Percy shakes his head. "It's adorable how you think that makes it better."

Nico blushes. Swoosh goes Percy's stomach. Interesting. Maybe he's hungry again.

Nico settles down at one of the tiny desks, his lanky legs folded up to his chin in the small chair. He opens the top of the desk and pulls out paper and crayons.

"Oh, are we going to draw?" Percy asks excitedly. He tries to sit at the desk next to Nico's but can't balance himself on the chair. He gives up and just kneels next to to Nico so he has a view of the paper. He links his arm through Nico's in case of shadow travel.

Nico begins to write places names on the paper, mostly places Percy has never heard of. He knows they're place names because Nico includes the town and state names. Some he writes specific places in the town. After writing five or so, he hesitates for a long time and then adds _New York_ to the list.

"Where in New York?" Percy asks. He knows that they have to go through all the stops before this thing is over, but if they're in New York, maybe someone from Camp could help. He could at least try to get to Camp before they're pulled off to the next place.

"Just...New York."

Nico adds _Disneyland, Anaheim, California_ to the list and Percy forgets about New York. " _Disneyland?_ "

Nico nods. He tries to hide it, but Percy can see him smiling too. Percy imagines Nico training up his shadow travel abilities, jumping from field to alleyway with man-eating birds to make sure he could fight after traveling. Then, to reward himself, he goes to Disneyland.

"The first time I accidentally ended up in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride," Nico says. "Not in the boat, but right there in the ride with all the animatronic pirates."

Percy laughs and Nico joins in. Percy is surprised to hear it and nearly stops laughing so he can listen to Nico's laugh. But he knows better than to draw attention to it.

"What did you do?"

Nico shrugs, then puts his arms up like a robot. "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me," he sings in a robot voice.

"Did you really?"

"Yeah, until I could shadow travel out without anyone seeing," Nico says. He grins. "I guess it could have been worse. I could have traveled onto the Winnie the Pooh ride."

They laugh about that and spend the next five minutes suggesting worse places that Nico could have landed. Nico is better at it that Percy because he's actually been to Disneyland before and Percy hasn't. When Percy tells him, Nico frowns like he's genuinely distressed for Percy's sake. That lasts about ten seconds and then he's scribbling with his crayon on the paper, creating a Disneyland itinerary for them.

"–and then we'll go on Star Tours! And that Buzz Lightyear ride where you shoot at Zurg. And that's just Tomorrow Land."

Percy lets Nico ramble on excitedly. He tunes out the words – which mean pretty much nothing to him anyway because he's never heard of half of these rides – and just listens to the earnest cadence of Nico's voice.

Nico stops mid-sentence when he's talking about Fantasy Land like he's just realized that he's been talking uninterrupted for the past five minutes. He frowns at his plans scribbled in crayon.

"Is Disneyland going to be our last stop?" Percy asks.

"I don't know. Maybe. We haven't been doing this in any particular order," Nico says.

"We're playing Shadow Travel roulette?"

"I have a good guess of where we're going to go next," Nico says. When he sees Percy's questioning look he shrugs. "I just have a feeling about it. Here," he taps his list. "Lake Elsinore."

"A feeling?"

"Yeah," Nico snaps, getting up from the desk. Percy has to surge to his feet and lunge after Nico to clap his hand on Nico's shoulder. Nico whirls around to face him and takes a half-step back in surprise when he sees how close Percy is. His eyes widen slightly and his gaze drops before sweeping back up to meet Percy's. Percy clears his throat.

"I, uh, didn't want you to accidentally travel without me," he says uncertainly.

"Right," Nico says rigidly. "Right."

Percy's eyes track the way Nico's dark eyes flit around the room. Percy is reminded of the way he looks for an exit when he is facing down a foe. Percy wants to pull back, to give Nico space, but of course he can't, that's the problem. He can't give Nico the exit he's looking for.

Except maybe he can. He gets an idea. Nico must see the lightbulb go off above Percy's head because he looks suddenly wary.

"What?" he asks.

"I have an idea," Percy announces.

"That's unusual."

"Shut up, it's a good idea."

"Even more unusual."

"We should try to contact Camp. You say we're going to Lake Elsinore next right? We call Camp and get someone to meet us there," Percy says, watching Nico carefully. If he wants to take this opportunity to change his bodyguard, Percy won't take it personally. Really, he won't. But he doesn't want to be the one to suggest it, in case Nico takes that personally.

Nico is staring back at him, uncomprehending. "What good would that do? I told you, we have to get through all these places before we can go back."

Percy bites his cheek to keep from smiling. It doesn't really work, but it means that he smiles a normal-sized smile instead of the huge grin he's feeling on the inside. "Uh, supplies? We still need to treat your wounds. And it would be good to get some real food. Plus maybe some money?"

Nico starts nodding along as Percy suggests possible supplies. He hasn't stepped back yet and Percy realizes how close together they are standing. He feels like he can count Nico's eyelashes and that is a ridiculous thought, why is he thinking about counting? And eyelashes? He's clearly just surprised. But he shouldn't be surprised by this, shouldn't be _anything_ about it. It didn't warrant an observation. And yet here he was, observing the heck out of it. It wasn't a bad observation, but the fact that he was observing–

"Um, Percy?" Nico's voice breaks through his thoughts.

"Hm?"

"You were talking and then you stopped."

"Yeah. I stop talking sometimes."

Nico mutters something that sounds a bit like y _ou sure about that?_ Louder he says, "We can probably find some first aid stuff here. It's a kindergarden classroom, aren't they required by law or something to keep bandaids and stuff in here?"

There are indeed bandaids. Disney Princess bandaids and Spider-Man bandaids, in fact. Nico ponders over his options while Percy cleans around the cuts. It's really too late to be starting medical treatment, but Percy doesn't care. Nico hands him bandaids and Percy applies them carefully to each cut. He even makes Nico wash his shirt in the sink while Nico mutters about stupid sons of Poseidon who don't understand how uncomfortable it is to shadow travel in wet clothing. Percy ignores him as he watches the way his hands spread the soap over the shirt. He rubs his thumbs in circles over the bloodstains in ways that make Percy wonder if children of Hades have special powers of hypnotism or something.

They call Camp. Percy's whole body relaxes when he hears a friendly voice on the other end of the line. It had only been him and Nico for who-knows-how-long and the reminder that there are other people in the world is like a sip of nectar.

"Gods, Percy," Annabeth breathes in his ear. Percy squeezes Nico's arm. "You were just _gone_ and I didn't know what to do. The last time-" her voice breaks a little and Percy thinks of the last time he vanished, not to turn up until months later with no memory and in Roman territory.

"I'm fine. We're both fine." He tries to make his voice as gentle as possible.

"We?"

"Nico. I'm with Nico." Percy quickly explains the last few days then listens as Annabeth comes up with and rejects several plans for how to deal with their situation. It's such a good feeling to hear something so familiar that Percy feels selfish keeping it to himself and after he talks briefly with Annabeth, he hands the phone to Nico.

"I want to talk to Hazel," Nico says as soon as he puts the phone up to his face. Percy shifts his hand to Nico's shoulder and holds him at arm's length to give him as much privacy as possible, but he can still hear Annabeth's voice come through the phone in a concerned jumble. Nico repeats himself in a tight voice and Percy can hear her sigh and comply.

There's a long pause as Annabeth goes to get Hazel. Nico clutches the phone and rocks back and forth on his feet. He's muttering something under his breath. Percy leans in to hear it.

" _Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up_."

Percy realizes that he's worried that they were going to shadow travel before Hazel can get to the phone. Percy squeezes Nico's shoulder in reassurance and then rubs small circles with his thumb, the way that Nico had done earlier when he was washing his shirt. Nico stops rocking and mumbling, but he doesn't loosen his grip on the phone and he doesn't look at Percy.

There's noise from the phone. Nico perks up.

"Hazel, listen to me. You need to meet me at Lake Elsinore. Leave as soon as we hang up. Bring food and supplies and, uh, bring me a shirt.” He glances at Percy then cups his hand around the receiver and whispers, “Something cool, okay?” He continues at a normal volume, “Be there as quickly as you can, okay?" It's a jumbled rush of instructions and Percy hopes that Hazel can understand it over the phone. There's a pause as Hazel says something.

"I'm fine," Nico says. "It's easier today than yesterday."

Hazel speaks again. Nico's eyes get wide.

"No, don't put Jason on–" Then he groans. He pulls out of Percy’s reach, forgetting that they have to remain in contact as he tries to get more privacy. Percy trails after him, keeping a light touch on his shoulder.

"Fine," Nico is whispering. "Everything is fine and if you ask that one more time I will-"

Whatever Nico's threat is going to be, it's lost in the soundless void of the shadow realm.

They don't manage to land on their feet on this re-entry to the real world. Percy feels the earth slip out from under him and then he's plummeting forward down a hill. He wants to stop the painful tumbling, but he's too focused on keeping his grip on Nico. As they near the bottom of the hill, Nico ends up completely folded up in Percy's arms. They skid to a stop and Percy makes no attempt to stand up, channeling all his energy into complaining about the landing. Nico lets him go on like that for about ten seconds before he's squirming out of Percy's reach and into a standing position, taking in their surroundings. Percy grabs Nico's ankle just in case.

"I don't see her," Nico says.

"It's only been, like, two minutes since you told her," Percy says, sitting up. "She's still on her way."

"What if we leave before she gets here?"

"We told Annabeth all the places you wrote down. If we don't see Hazel here, we'll meet up with her somewhere else."

Nico bites his lip. Percy pats the ground next to him, inviting Nico to sit with him. Nico folds his legs under him and sits. His shoulder is pressed to Percy's. Without thinking, Percy says, "I'm getting used to this. It's going to be weird when it's over."

Nico doesn't say anything. He bumps his shoulder against Percy's though, so Percy thinks maybe he agrees. They sit in silence after that, looking out at the sunset reflected in the lake.

* * *

Hazel doesn't keep them waiting long. Maybe eight minutes pass before she’s there, sliding off Arion's back and running straight to Nico, tackling him in a huge hug. Nico protests, but Percy can see him hugging her back even harder than she's hugging him. Percy experiences a brief, crazy moment of jealousy. He wishes Annabeth was there, or Rachel or Grover or someone who would hug him with as much love as Hazel and Nico are hugging each other.

Hazel hugs him too and shows them both the supplies she's brought. Nico falls asleep as she's showing them how to put together the tent, though Percy suspects that he's faking it to get out of helping. They pack all the supplies up and Percy puts his free arm through one of the straps. One more thing to keep in constant contact with

He sits next to Nico, then pulls the sleeping boy closer, pillowing his head in Percy's lap. Hazel sits next to him.

"How is everything at camp?" Percy asks her.

She shrugs. "It's camp."

"Yeah," Percy sighs wistfully. "Camp."

"Everyone is fine," Hazel says. "Well, they are now that we know where you are. And Nico," she adds. Percy wonders how many of them were really worried about Nico. Not because they didn't care, but because he was just never around anyway. It's hard to tell when he's in trouble because none of them know his _I'm-okay_ pattern well enough.

"I'm glad it's you with him, Percy," Hazel says. "Don't let it go to your head or anything, but I'm glad it's you with him. You're who he trusts the most with the hero stuff. He used to tell me about what it means to be a hero when I first showed up at Camp Jupiter. I thought he was crazy, that no one could be like that, but then I met you and I understood."

Percy isn't sure what to say to that. He knows he's a hero, but they're all heroes, Nico included. He looks at Nico and sees that a lock of his dark hair has fallen into his face. Percy brushes it back. He leaves his fingers in Nico's hair. This _constantly-touching-Nico_ thing has really erased a lot of physical boundaries that Percy usually feels with people.

To Hazel he says, "I'm glad it's me too."

Hazel nods like he's said the right thing and they let silence fall between them. Percy keeps running his fingers through Nico's hair.

* * *

Nico must be comfortable because he sleeps for a long time.

He's still asleep when Percy feels them dissolve back into the shadow realm. So far, Percy hasn't minded the shadow travel. He wouldn't say that he's been enjoying it, but it's fine. This time is different. It's horrible.

As soon as the darkness takes over, Percy's heart clenches and all his muscles tense. A feeling of terror floods through his body. Nico is asleep and Percy feels like he's completely alone. There is nothing around him. Nothing but darkness. He doesn't hear or see anything. The feeling of isolation is crushing and Percy starts to hyperventilate. He grabs Nico's hand then shifts his fingers to the pulse point on Nico's wrist. He focuses on the feeling of Nico's pulse under his fingers to calm himself.

Percy didn't feel like this on any other shadow travel. But Nico was awake on those trip, moving with him, touching him back, and generally proving that there was someone else alive in the world. This must be what it's like to shadow travel alone, Percy realizes. Is that how Nico feels every time he travels alone?

When they emerge from the shadows, Percy is so happy to be back in the real world again that he considers kissing the dirt. He forces himself to breathe calmly until his heartbeat slows and his head stops spinning from when he was hyperventilating earlier. He realizes that he's crying.

Percy has to fight the temptation to wake Nico so he doesn't have to travel like that again. He tries to rationalize that it wouldn't be as scary the next time because it can't be that bad to travel alone every time, could it? Percy refuses to believe that Nico willingly subjects himself to that feeling of overwhelming isolation every time he uses his shadow travel alone. Percy still has his fingers on Nico's pulse. He focuses on that. His own heart is still pounding hard enough that he can feel it in his chest. He feels it slow until it's almost in time with Nico's, but never quite lining up perfectly.

"Is your friend all right?" a voice cuts into his thoughts, startling Percy.

There's a young boy standing in front of him and Nico. He's barefoot, wearing dirty jeans and a dirtier t-shirt. His dark skin is scuffed with lighter dirt. The overall effect makes it seem like the boy has spent his day rolling around in the dirt. Percy, still reeling from the shadow travel, is thrilled to see another person, even if he is a dusty kid.

"Is he dead?" the kid asks.

"He's fine. He's sleeping."

"You're crying and petting him," the kid says skeptically.

"He's sleeping," Percy repeats. "Who are you? Where are we?"

"I'm Tyler and we're on my farm."

" _Your_ farm? I'm Percy and this is Nico."

"My _parents'_ farm," Tyler concedes. He chews his lip and then blurts out, "I saw you come out of the tree."

"What?"

Tyler points behind Percy at a large tree with a wide shadow. That must be where they came out of the shadow realm. If he saw them appear, the kid could see the through Mist.

"Are you magic or something?" the kid asks.

"My friend is," Percy says. It's easier than explaining gods and demi-gods and he is tired.

Tyler looks at Nico in awe. "Can I meet him? Please?"

Percy tries not to look too eager at the excuse to wake Nico. He shakes Nico's shoulder gently.

"Nico."

Nico groans and turns his face into Percy's thigh the way Percy buries his head in his pillow when his mom or his alarm is dragging him out of bed and he just wants five more minutes of sleep. When Nico realizes what he's doing, he jerks away.

"Wha-"

"Nico, Tyler wants to meet you."

"Tyler?" Nico asks, rubbing his eyes.

"Hi, I'm Tyler. Are you magic?"

Watching a sleepy Nico struggling to understand what the hell is going on erases the last of the panic that Percy felt during the shadow travel.

Nico looks questioningly at Percy who nods.

"Yes," Nico says slowly. "I am magic."

"Awesome," Tyler breathes. "Show me." Nico frowns and Tyler rushes to say, "I won't tell anyone, I promise. I just want to see magic."

"It's not- I can't do anything cool," Nico warns.

Tyler rolls his eyes and sits criss-cross applesauce, clearly ready for a show. Percy is curious to see what Nico will do too.

Nico frowns again, in concentration this time. He holds his hands up and begins to move them slowly like he's tracing something in the air. Percy holds his breath. The grass under them starts to go brown and prickly. It spreads out in a pattern and Percy sees that Nico is killing the grass so that it spells out Tyler's name. Tyler realizes this at the same time and laughs delightedly.

"That's so cool! Look, it's my name! Percy, look!"

"I see it," Percy says. "It's amazing." He smiles at Nico who blushes and smiles back. "Amazing," Percy repeats.

"Can you do more please?" Tyler asks looking at Nico in awe.

Nico's smile falters. There's nothing else he can do except raise skeletons and those would scare Tyler.

Percy jumps in. "I think Nico is probably too tired to do any more magic right now."

Nico looks tired. The glow of his blush and smile has gone and his face is left looking more pale and drawn than usual. It looks like he has been awake for a decade. Performing his magic trick must have really drained him.

"You know, Percy can do magic too," Nico says caustically.

Percy looks at him, surprised at his tone. Nico is scowling at him, his eyes glittering with malice. Percy reels back from the look. Is this the boy who was smiling and blushing just a minute ago? Percy wonders where he misstepped. He opens his mouth, but Tyler speaks first.

"Oh, can I see?"

"I can't-"

"Come on, Percy," Nico says in that same harsh tone. "Show Tyler what you can do, I'm sure he'll love it. Who doesn't?"

Percy feels uncomfortable and he's getting angry. He doesn't know what he's done wrong, why Nico is spitting his words at him.

"There's not even any water here," he protests.

"We'll find some. Then you can show Tyler what magic _should_ look like." Nico jumps to his feet and starts down the hill.

"Nico! Nico, wait!" Percy calls, chasing after him.

He runs to catch up but then Nico is running too and Percy is falling behind. All he can think about is what will happen if Nico shadow travels without him. He runs faster.

As soon as he's close enough, he tackles Nico to the ground. They roll down the hill and suddenly they're in the shadow realm, still rolling. Percy remembers the last trip through the shadow realm and braces himself for the terror but it doesn't come. Still, Percy adjusts his grip until he can put his hand on Nico's wrist again to feel his pulse. Nico stops fighting him. Percy can feel his heartbeat change. It doesn't slow down, but it changes somehow. Before Percy can figure it out, they're back in the real world.

"Nico," Percy says roughly. As soon as he’s back on his feet, he grabs Nico by the collar and hauls him in close. He puts his other hand on the back of Nico's neck, holding him steady and making him look Percy in the eye. "I don't know what the hell just happened, but it's never happening again, okay? Can I just apologize for whatever I did and if I promise to never do it again, will you promise not to run off again? Please, Nico?"

Nico's lips part, but he doesn't say anything. After a moment, he nods.

Percy exhales a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and drops his head onto Nico's shoulder. "Good."

"I didn't do it to leave you behind," Nico whispers. "I was just..."

 _Mad at me,_ Percy thinks. _Because I said you were too tired to do more magic. I'm sorry._ He pats Nico on the back, not sure what else to do. "I'm sticking with you until this is over," he says. He thinks of the moment back in the kindergarten classroom when he had given Nico the opportunity to replace him with someone else. He doesn't think he could do that now. When Nico broke out of his grip on Tyler's farm it felt so– bad. Wrong.

"Percy," Nico says suddenly. "When we were shadow traveling before, when I was asleep, was it..." He trails off.

"Horrible."

"Ah," Nico says like the puzzle pieces have fallen into place. "You should just wake me up next time, all right?" He says this in a gentle tone that makes Percy want to remind him who is protecting who here.

***

The next three days suck- three days of shadow travel that wipes Nico out almost so completely that he can barely move. He had seemed like he was getting stronger after their first few trips, but now he staggers and sways every time they come out of the shadow realm. He collapses and Percy catches him. He gets them both sitting down somewhere comfortable. Nico's head rests on his shoulder or in his lap. They don't talk much over those three days. Nico doesn't have the energy to spare. Sometimes Percy just can't stand the quiet for one more second and he talks at Nico, saying anything that comes to mind as he rubs Nico's shoulder or plays with his fingers or strokes his hair.

Sometimes Percy quietly worries about his growing comfort with having a hand on Nico. This shadow travel shuffle won't last forever and then Nico will go back to wherever he goes when he's not with Percy and the others. And Percy will have to get used to not being so close to him. He thinks about that in the quietest moments of their days, when there is nothing to distract him from this problem that he wants distraction from.

They run into trouble here and there. One time there's a pack of some weird coyote-looking monsters that chase them into an empty supermarket. Percy is carrying Nico and he feels way too slow to outrun the monsters. Eventually he stands to fight because the monsters will catch him sooner or later running will just tire him out for his inevitable fight.

He makes his stand in the bread and cereal aisle. He puts one of those cardboard stands with bargain items at his back so that the monsters can't flank him entirely, but it's not good enough. Too much of his focus is on where Nico is crouching next to him, watching the whole fight with a weary helplessness. Anyway, there are too many of them for him to take on alone. He realizes that one will eventually slip past his guard and it will get to Nico. He has to make a tactical decision. He hates tactical decisions.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he says to Nico. Nico just nods shallowly, his eyes unfocused. Percy wonders if he even knows what's going on. He hands Nico a kitchen knife that he grabbed on their way to the bread and cereal aisle, closing Nico's fingers around the handle. It won't actually do much good, but it makes Percy feel marginally better.

He takes off, shouting, "Hey! Over here! Follow me!" He's not sure that the monsters understand the words, but they do seem to understand the loud, fast-moving target that Percy makes himself into. His gamble pays off. The entire pack follows him, growling and baring their teeth menacingly. Percy can't help himself from taking one look back at Nico. The boy is alone, holding his knife tightly.

 _Please don't shadow travel without me,_ Percy thinks. He wonders which god he should be begging right now. Hades?

He tries to calm himself. There's only two more places to go from the list that Nico wrote up in the kindergarten classroom: New York and Disneyland. Worst comes to worst, he can try to find Nico in one of those places. Because finding one boy in New York in the limited time that the shadow travel shuffle will keep Nico there _totally_ sounds doable.

His sword feels heavy in his right hand and his left hand feels empty and disconnected from the rest of him. It wants to stretch out and find Nico.

Percy leads the pack of monsters to the bathrooms at the back of the store. Unleashing the plumbing is the only chance he has to beat these ugly monsters. They follow him in, growling smugly, thinking they’ve trapped him and not the other way around. Percy gets that tug in his gut, the nearly primal feeling of being connected to a water source. He grabs on the sensation and tugs back. The sink explodes with water, blasting the first three monsters into dust with the force of it. The rest of the pack dodges, though they seem shaken. They don’t seem eager to step in the water that Percy is holding just between him and the pack. Usually, Percy would be happy to let the beasts flee, but they might flee right back to Nico. He pushes the water into them, letting them flounder in it for a minute. Then he forces it all back into the sink and, while the monsters are still disoriented and panicking, cuts them down with Riptide.

The last one is still turning into dust when Percy takes off out of the bathroom. He sprints as hard as he can back to where Nico was. He skids around the corner into the bread and cereal aisle.

It’s empty.

“ _No_ ,” he gasps. “No, no, no, no.”

He can’t move, can’t take his eyes off the spot where he left Nico. He feels abandoned even though he was the one who ran off – _to protect Nico_ – and even though Nico didn’t have any control over it. He feels like there’s a hole in his side or like he’s missing an essential limb.

“Percy?” It’s barely more than a whisper, but it ignites his whole being. He slides down to his knees near where the sound came from, _hoping_ but not believing, not yet. There on the bottom shelf, half-hidden by some loaves of bread, is Nico.

“Nico!”

He pulls him out from behind his bread fortress and straight into a hug. The relief – the joy – that rushes through him is almost dizzying. He doesn’t think at all, just feels it. Maybe that’s why he kisses Nico on the mouth.

It startles Nico, but Percy thinks it startles him more. He jerks away, like he wasn’t the one who began it.

“Uh-“

“Um-“

“What?”

“What?”

They stare at each other.

“Uh.”

“You said that already.”

“Right.”

Nico doesn’t look so tired right now. He looks shocked and he’s staring as hard as Percy has ever seen him stare, like he thinks that if he looks hard enough he’ll be able to see right into Percy’s brain and figure out what in the name of all the gods just happened.

“I was glad to see you,” Percy says lamely. “And we’ve been hugging for, like, eight days straight. It wasn’t celebratory enough.”

“So you kissed me,” Nico says. He says it like he’s still not sure that it actually happened.

“I guess so. Yeah. Sorry.”

“You’re apologizing for kissing me?” Nico asks in a strangled voice. Percy nods like _yeah, duh_. “I forgive you for kissing me,” Nico says in the same tone. He pauses, then shakes his head. “This is the weirdest day ever.”

“I really didn’t mean to,” Percy says. “And it wasn’t- I’m not…” It’s really hard to defend your heterosexuality to a guy you’re currently holding hands with. Whose hand you wouldn’t let go of if both your hands got chopped off.

“Yeah,” Nico says. “I know.”

“Not that I don’t- I mean,” Percy sighs in frustration. “I’m really happy that you’re still here. It felt bad leaving you like I did.”

“Yeah,” Nico agrees softly.

Percy is relieved that Nico understands. That he felt the same bizarre emptiness, the feeling of being incomplete. Thinking those words, Percy groans internally. It’s going to be so hard to readjust to life without holding onto Nico. He wonders if he can talk Nico into doing it in increments, like when people quit smoking by easing off of it with nicotine patches and gum. He asks and Nico looks like he’s considering it, but he shakes his head.

“Why not?”

“I have places to be. Things to do,” Nico says, puffing himself up a little.

“What? Like where?”

“If I tell you, will you try to find me?” Nico looks like he regrets the question as soon as he asks it, so Percy does him the courtesy of actually thinking about his answer instead of saying the first flippant response that comes to his head.

“Probably,” he says.

“Why?”

Percy shakes his head in disbelief that Nico doesn’t know the answer to that. “You’re important, Nico. And you belong with me at camp. With all of us.”

“I’m a son of Hades,” Nico says.

“Before anything else, you’re my friend. I don’t care who your dad is, I just care about you. You have to know that.” Nico doesn’t look convinced, but he does blush and give Percy a shy look. Percy sighs. “We’ll work on it.”

***

They have to hide when the employees come to open the store for business. They stay in the back of the stockroom to wait, even after the store opens. Nico is still too exhausted to walk for very long and Percy would rather stay in the store than risk whatever is outside of it. After all, those coyote-looking monsters had to have come from somewhere.

For once, Percy is quieter than Nico. Nico has started planning their Disneyland trip again, excitedly speculating that it might be their last stop after all. Percy barely hears Nico’s whispered suggestions for it over the whirling of his thoughts.

There are plenty of things that he should be worried about right now. He should be worried about the cut on his abdomen from where one of the monsters caught him with a claw. He should be worried about what he’ll say if one of the supermarket employees finds him and Nico hiding back here or when they’ll eat next or even how they’re going to afford all the turkey legs that Nico wants to eat at Disneyland. But no, none of that is what is worrying him right now. He’s worrying about kissing Nico and it’s so stupid.

He’s already apologized and Nico has accepted his apology, so it should be fine. Nico hasn’t freaked out or tried to run away, so it should be fine. Nico is talking about things he wants to do at Disneyland with Percy, so he’s clearly not planning on leaving Percy behind. So it should be fine. But still, Percy worries.

Worries, and keeps and extra careful hold on Nico’s arm.

Nico glances at Percy’s hand on his arm every time Percy tightens his grip. After a while, he puts his hand over Percy’s and gently pulls Percy’s hand off his arm. Percy looks over at him in alarm but Nico is already winding his fingers into the spaces between Percy’s fingers so that they are holding hands. Percy relaxes. Then he wonders why that makes him relax and he tenses again. Nico rubs his thumb over Percy’s knuckles and Percy relaxes again. There’s a noise outside their hiding spot and Percy tenses again. His muscles complain at the rapid changes in his posture.

Nico doesn’t say anything, nor does he stop stoking Percy’s knuckles. Eventually, Percy just relaxes.

“There’s only two places left,” Nico says quietly.

“We hope.”

“Only two, trust me. Want to bet which one is next?”

“Disneyland and New York, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Which one do you hope is next?” Percy knows the answer, but he likes to hear Nico say it.

“Disneyland.” Percy doesn’t have to look at Nico to know that he’s smiling, but he looks anyway to see him do it. “What about you?”

“New York. I’m kind of homesick,” Percy admits. Nico fidgets. “But maybe it would be better to end in New York. Getting back to camp will be easier that way.”

Nico hums in what could be agreement or disagreement. “Percy, about New York…”

“What about it?”

Nico bites his lip. He looks anxiously at Percy for a long moment before shaking his head and dropping his gaze. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just…nothing.”

“All right.”

“You’ll see when we get to New York.”

Percy really hopes that New York is next up on their Shadow Travel Tour.

***

They spend another day and a half in the supermarket. It’s the longest they’ve stayed in one place in a while, and if Nico wasn’t so sure that they still had two more places to go before this thing was over, Percy would think that they had gotten lucky and finished this weird trip early. He can’t stop himself from speculating out loud that maybe it’s all over, though. Nico gives in to Percy’s pestering on their second day and tries his shadow travel. He passes out for nearly four hours, so Percy guesses that Nico’s right about not having control over his powers yet.

They pass the time mostly by playing an improvised game of checkers with bottles of juice they found in the storage room. They are evenly matched in skill and Percy gets too emotionally invested, nearly revealing their hiding spot by shouting _gods damn it!_ when Nico wins their fifth match.

After checkers, they play I Spy. After that they play Rock, Paper, Scissors. They play Would You Rather (though that gets too morbid too quickly) and they play I Spy again. Percy gives up when Nico spies the same orange juice carton three turns in a row.

He slid down along the wall some time during the second round of I Spy, and his head is now resting in Nico’s lap. Nico is running his fingers gently through Percy’s hair. His hair is long now – he doesn’t know when he is ever going to find time to get it cut; he might just let Piper at it with a pair of scissors one of these days – and the consecutive days of travel with no opportunity to wash have left his hair in a bit of a rat’s nest. There might actually be a couple rats nesting in it for all he knows. When Nico encounters a knot, he works his fingers through it patiently, never yanking, never hurting. It’s incredibly soothing. Percy starts to feel his eyes droop and his mind begin to give in to sleep, but he shakes himself out of it. He can’t make Nico go through shadow travel with him asleep. Not if he can do anything about it.

So he’s boneless with fatigue, just as pathetic as Nico when they finally do take the Randomized Shadow Express out of the grocery store. He has to blink his tired eyes for a minute before he can focus them enough to see where they have landed.

His bedroom. They are in his bedroom.

For a minute, Percy wonders if he has somehow hijacked Nico’s shadow travel by sheer force of will in his single-minded desire to crash face-first onto his bed and not get up again until he is thirty or maybe forty. Then Nico launches into a frenzied, babbling explanation about how New York was more difficult to shadow travel to because of Olympus reasons and he wanted to go somewhere safe and he usually went to the kitchen and not Percy’s bedroom and in fact he had never even been in here before and–

“Hold on, hold on,” Percy says, putting up his free hand for silence. Nico obliges, but he keeps twitching and fidgeting. His face is twisted with embarrassment; he looks miserable. Percy is too tired to process this new information and he blurts out the first stupid thing he thinks of: “You didn’t, like, watch me sleep, did you?”

Wrong thing to say, Jackson.

Nico’s face crumples and he jerks his hand out of Percy’s grasp. Percy instinctively lunges after him, but Nico is too quick for sleep-deprived Percy.

“Sorry, that was stupid,” Percy says, holding his hands up in the _I surrender_ position and approaching Nico slowly. “I’m just- my bedroom?”

Nico’s face is crimson. He looks mortified and even more miserable than before. He keeps backing away as Percy approaches. Percy tries not to panic about not currently touching Nico – last time they stopped for more than a day, he probably has plenty of time to calm Nico down before they travel again – he tries not to panic and focus on Nico instead.

“This was a stop on your Shadow Travel Shuffle. You came here to my house,” Percy says. Maybe if he says it out loud it will make sense. Shockingly, it does. A thousand memories rushing in to confirm it.

Percy stops walking toward Nico and drops his hands. His mouth drops open in shock too, momentarily. Then he says, “You like me.” Nico makes a squeaking sound and covers his face with his hands.

“You _like_ me,” Percy repeats, slower. He can practically _taste_ the truth of it and he can’t believe he hasn’t figured this out before now. “You have a _crush on me_.”

“Please stop saying that,” Nico whispers between his hands where they’re still covering his face.

Percy’s brain is fried from the sleep deprivation and the surprise, so when he’s forbidden from stating facts, he stares silently at Nico. His mouth might drop open again too. After a few minutes of this, Nico lowers his hands and glares at Percy.

“Well?” he demands.

“Well?” Percy repeats.

“Say something!”

“You just told me to-“

“Percy!”

Percy grasps around in the regions of his brain that are still functioning for something smart to say. “I- I didn’t know.”

Nico huffs. “ _Obviously._ Say something useful.”

“Like what?”

“Like, I don’t know, maybe _how you feel about this_ ,” Nico says through gritted teeth. The area around him darkens like a shadow has just covered the sun. When Percy is silent, Nico asks,”Do you like me too?” in a totally different tone, soft and unsure.

Percy stares at him, brain whirling. _Yes,_ his insides are screaming, _yes, of course you do, you idiot_. But Percy can’t make his mouth work. His brain is shouting back, _I don’t like_ boys, _I can’t like Nico!_ Percy can’t say anything, either way. He’s so busy bouncing between _yes_ and _no,_ so caught up in _Nico liking him and how does he feel about this and does he like Nico back_ that he doesn’t notice the shadows wrapping themselves around Nico until it’s too late.

“No!” Percy screams, diving for him. He slams into the wall where Nico was half a second ago.

Too late. He’s gone, his wounded expression seared onto Percy’s eyeballs. Thinking that Percy has rejected him.

Percy punches the wall four, five, six times, leaving a crack in the wall and scrapes on his knuckles. Then he runs downstairs and out the door.

He has to get to Disneyland. Nico isn’t coming back to Camp Halfblood when this is all over. He’ll vanish and he’s good at vanishing. Percy might not be able to find him for a long time. He has to find him _now_. He has to get to Anaheim, California. All the way across the country.

Outside on the sidewalk, he whistles as loud as he can. “Blackjack,” he screams at the sky. A mother walking toward him on the sidewalk grabs her daughter’s hand and pulls her across the street, away from Percy. Percy whistles again then paces until Blackjack shows up. “Take me to Camp, as fast as you can,” he tells Blackjack, jumping onto his back.

***

The really truly wonderful thing about having saved the world a few times is that when you jump off a pegasus’ back in the middle of dinner after being absent for days, possibly weeks, and shout that you need to get to Disneyland as quickly as possible, people don’t stare at you like you’re deranged or try to make you explain yourself, people just scramble to help you. Hazel talks Arion into taking Percy to Disneyland, Annabeth pools together enough money for a ticket, and Grover gets him a plate of food for the road and even makes the burnt offering for the gods on his behalf.

Percy has the best friends ever.

He has no idea how long it takes him to get to Disneyland. The trip feels interminable because he’s worrying about everything from being too late, to not being able to find Nico in the crowd, to Annabeth underestimating how much a ticket to Disneyland costs and not giving him enough money to get in. Also, Arion is apparently trying to travel fast enough to pop his eardrums, make him vomit, and peel the skin off of his face.

He gets to Disneyland just before sunset. The sky is cloudless and blue, the promise of sunset in the tinges of red and pink at the edges. Once Percy thanks Arion and gets his land-legs back, he sprints to the ticket booth.

“One ticket please!” Oops, he might have screamed that at the ticket person. His eardrums are still recovering from the trip.

The park is packed. Percy’s heart sinks as he looks at the crowds. He might not be able to find Nico. After all this, Nico could disappear. He’s aching to touch Nico right now. To hold his hand or hug him or Percy doesn’t care as long as they’re close to one another.

He thinks back to what Nico said when they talked about Disneyland, trying to remember anything that would give him a clue of where to start looking.

_“I love Small World,” Nico said, totally unashamed of loving such a kiddie ride. “I like the song.”_

_Percy laughed, but only because it was clear that Nico expected him to. Really, he thought it was adorable._

Percy’s legs might fall off tomorrow from so much running, but it’s not tomorrow yet so he sprints to Fantasy Land.

He’s starting to think that Nico will never come to this part of the park and maybe he should try looking somewhere else when he catches a glimpse of familiar dark hair. Nico is getting in line for Small World.

“Nico!” Percy shouts. He runs to catch up. He elbows a few people in the line out of his way and people grumble at him, but whatever. He skids to a halt next to Nico.

“Percy?” Nico asks in alarm. “You- how did you get here?”

“Horse,” Percy wheezes, out of breath from his latest sprint. “Need- to talk- to you.”

“You really don’t,” Nico says tightly. The line is moving quickly and they’re at the front already.

“Really do,” Percy insists as they climb into the boat.

Nico sighs. “Have you ever been on Small World?” he asks.

Percy shakes his head.

“Then no talking during the ride. You have to appreciate the song or we’re not talking at all,” Nico says. He looks smug, like he’s trapped Percy in some sort of un-winnable bet. Percy is offended that Nico doesn’t think he can be quiet for the length of one Disneyland ride. He’s about to say so when he realizes that that will just prove Nico’s point and he snaps his mouth shut. Nico continues to grin smugly.

Small World is a horrifying, nightmarish ride where animatronic dolls aggressively sing about the size of the world in multiple languages while dancing sinisterly. Percy keeps his hand on Riptide, just in case. Then again, Nico is looking at the clearly evil dolls as though they’re not clearly evil. Like they’re rather nice. His eyes might be shining a little. Percy watches him watch the dolls and he can’t stop himself from sliding his hand closer and closer to where Nico’s is resting on the seat until their fingers touch. Nico doesn’t look at him, but he doesn’t pull his hand away either. Slowly, Percy slips his fingers through the spaces between Nico’s fingers until they are holding hands.

Percy almost messes up a few times, but he manages to catch himself before he accidentally says something. Miraculously, he stays silent for the whole ride. He wouldn’t say that he has appreciated the song, but he certainly heard it.

They have to let go of each other’s hand as they get out of the boat, but Percy grabs Nico’s again as soon as they exit the ride. He pulls them over to the side of the walkway, out of pedestrian traffic and takes a deep breath.

“Okay, I was quiet for that whole spooky ride, so now you be quiet and listen to me talk. The reason I hesitated is because I’ve never even tried to think about it in those terms before. I’m trying to get used to it now, but it’s still weird for me. But I know that I don’t want you to be anywhere but with me. Preferably holding my hand and kissing me.” He should have practiced his speech when he was riding Arion there, but he didn’t. He hopes Nico doesn’t mind. He hopes he’s making himself clear. Nico is standing there biting his lip and wrinkling his brow.

“You’re just saying that because of all the shadow travel. Because you’re used to it,” Nico says after a long moment.

“I’d have gotten here eventually. The shadow travel was just a way of accelerating this whole thing.”

Nico still looks unsure and scared. He is going to take a lot of convincing. Good thing Percy has always loved insurmountable odds.

He raises his hand to cup Nico’s chin, tilting his face up to make him look Percy in the eyes. Then, moving slowly and keeping his grip light so that Nico can pull away if he wants to, Percy tilts his head towards Nico’s. He keeps his eyes open until their lips brush together, relishing the look on Nico’s face before he closes them to enjoy the sensation of Nico’s lips on his. Everything about the kiss is slow and relaxed. The tourists buzz around then and the world spins through space and none of it matters or even registers in Percy’s mind. The feeling of Nico’s mouth pressed warm and soft to his makes everything else small and quiet. Nico brings his hands up to Percy’s waist and holds lightly, like he’s still afraid that Percy will brush off, even as he sighs into Percy’s mouth. Percy pulls Nico flush to him and spends the next five, ten, fifteen minutes demonstrating to Nico that he shouldn’t be worried about that. At all. 

**Author's Note:**

> I know this promises to be the first in a series of unrelated fic about shadow travel, but I am an i n c r e d i b l y slow writer and I have lots of work to do this summer. If you like this and you want more please be patient with me. Or pester me until I produce.


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